I Hate Needles

Yes I hate needles. All of my life I have dreaded getting a shot, or having blood work done. I can’t stand the pain from shots and I often (well very often) pass out. I have tried relaxing and taking breathes when getting shots, but it doesn’t help me at all.

Now I know you are saying, “Mr. Trash you are a vagina” and I would agree with you but I know the truth. I have broken my ankles (cross country track meet and skate boarding) a total of 3 times between the two of them, and the pain from it was not bad. I have blown out my knee (my acl) and had surgery and the pain from it was again not bad. I was passing gall bladder stones (and if you have ever passed them you know it fucking hurts) and had my gall bladder removed and that pain was huge, but pales in comparison to the pain I get from shots. I can’t stand those little needles of pain inflicting metal to be anywhere near me.

I had a lot of health problems as a kid, so I was always in a doctor’s office or hospital getting poke and prodded by some nurse. By the way, the nurses dressed a lot sexier back in the 1970’s than they do today. And they were probably a lot less crazy back then as well, but I digress. I apparently had (well have to be honest) veins which are not easy to locate. So as a child with all of the health problems I had I was constantly being forced to subject myself to the tortures of the needles multiple times before they could get it correct. If there was a problem a child could have, I had it. And the solution was always some damn needle.

Fast forward to my adult life, I have also been tortured with the needle. I always warn the nurses or doctors that I have problems with needles and that I pass out, but most of the time they don’t listen to me. It also seems that every time I do have to get a shot, I end up with the lab tech who just graduated lab tech school.

When I started working in the oil patch, I had to go get 20 something immunizations so I could travel to third world countries. I went to the clinic where I did my piss test so I could get my shots that the WHO insists that you must have. I warned the nurse that I pass out from shots and that I need to lie down to take them. She did not listen to me. She sat me in a chair and gave me a couple of shots; I passed out, and fell out of the chair onto the floor because she could not hold me up. When I woke up minutes later, I was surrounded by the entire clinic staff. The nurse said she had no clue I would pass out and I called her a lying bitch in front of 30 people because I had in fact pre-warned her of my tendency to pass out. Since I still had 18 shots left to get, they put me on a bed so if I passed out, I would not end up on the floor again. I also had pulled down my pants as half of the shots had to go in one of my ass cheeks. I told them that when I pass out, to continue giving me the shots or we will be here all fucking day. I woke up 5 minutes later and they had given me all of my shots while I was out, like I had asked them to do. I was pleased to say the least. And the manager of the clinic had gone to the store next door and got me a gatorade and apologized for the nitwit nurse who did not listen to me.

A few months after this I was going through the process of trying to find out why I had such bad stomach problems (also the subject of a future blog post). I was ordered by the doctor to go to the lab and give blood so they could run some preliminary blood work. I went with my then wife (who was also 8 months preggars and fucking huge because it was twins) to the clinic to give my blood. Well we both warned the lab tech that I was afraid of needles and needed to be on a couch because I would pass out. I knew I would pass out as it was 7pm and I had been up since 5am and had not eaten that day, so my normal problems with needles were magnified by 100. They had a bed/couch thingy in the lab but it had boxes on it so the lab tech put me in this chair thing (pictured to the side). The chair thing had a bar that was supposed to prevent someone from falling out of the chair, but the bar on the chair was broken. We again warned the woman that I was going to pass out, but she pressed on with the collection of my blood. I was supposed to give 5 vials of blood, and I passed out as soon as she got the 5th vial in. I woke up later on the floor to hear a lot of loud yelling and screaming. Apparently I passed out and the nurse couldn’t hold me up and let me fall flat on my face on the floor. And my then wife was being restrained by a cop (the hospital security were cops) as she had slapped the fuck out of the lab tech (when I learned that you don’t fuck with a pregnant woman) and there was at least 20 people in the lab by then. My then wife was screaming at the lab tech because the lab tech was saying she had not been warned about my fear of needles, which she had been warned multiple times. I explained to the cop what happened and he released my then wife, and the hospital administrator apologized once she saw that the bed/couch was being used as storage and she heard my side of the story.

I could go on and on all day about my misadventures with needles, but if I did you would kill yourself like one of the people on the movie Airplane listening to Striker talk about the war. Needless to say I do not like needles. You can accuse me of being a lot of things in life, but one thing you can never accuse me of is being a person who shoots themselves up with drugs.

You might be asking yourself why did you tell me this story Mr Trash, well you need to understand my fear and problems with needles so that a future post in my blog is taken in context and all that more sad and funny.